Remote Sensing the Margins of the Gold Trade

Gold studies on the Indian Ocean- West Philippine/ South China Sea world system have tended to focus on global and often homogenous patterns in the fields of archaeology and history. However, there is increasing interest in pursuing the gold studies by starting from the putative ‘peripheries’ from where gold nuggets were mined in crude tunnels or panned in streams. Remote Sensing the Margins of the Gold Trade shows how Igorot societies negotiated their peripherality in the expansive porcelain-for-gold exchange system that was creeping onto their shores. The research looks at how the Igorot miners practiced their agency through their participation in tabu-tabuans or evanescent market encounter at the coastal trading centers. The findings are based on multiscalar and multidisciplinary analyses using regional GIS data, high resolution multispectral satellite remote sensing data, ethnographic data, primary and secondary written historical data, archival maps and images, oral tradition data, and archaeological data on the Early Historical to Historical period.